


Someday We'll All Be Old

by pixiegerms



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, M/M, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 03:24:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixiegerms/pseuds/pixiegerms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony is eight when two visits to his bedroom change his life forever. He's sixteen when everything normal in his life is flipped on it's head. Public school is a head trip, but Clint seems to have him covered. And then there's the matter of Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> This work will (likely) have around ten parts. I'm still in the progress of writing, but I'm fairly certain. Please be warned that major childhood sexual abuse appears on scene and is talked about throughout. Also, Tony gets into a number of unhealthy relationships, some being physically and emotionally abusive.

Tony is eight when two visits to his bedroom change his life forever.  
  
The first vistor is drunk. Tony comes awake as soon as he feels the covers being pulled back, but he pretends to sleep until a pair of arms wraps around him. He relaxes, smelling the mixture of expensive cologne and alcohol that is his father’s signature scent.  
  
“Dad?” he says questioningly, trying to sit up, but a hand comes up to rest on his head and won’t let him move. It strokes over his hair and Tony can feel it shaking.  
  
His father shushes him. “My little boy. My genius little Tony.”  
  
Tony learned a long time ago that his father never compliments him out of the blue. He wants to relax into his father’s arms and bask in the attention, but something’s wrong. He can hear it in his father’s voice.  
  
Tony wants to ask, but then he feels something. It’s wet and spreading in his hair and when he turns in his father’s arms he sees something he never expected from him. Tears.  
  
“We love you so much, Tony. Your mother and I love you so much,” his dad mutters, rocking him softly.  
  
“I love you too, Dad,” Tony says simply. He doesn’t know what else to say because he doesn’t understand.  
  
His father doesn’t respond. He just keeps saying again and again, “Your mother and I love you so much. So much, so much. Your mother loves you, Tony. She’s always loved you.”  
  
Confused, Tony tries his best to say that he loves his mom too and that he would very much like to go talk to her now. But his father won’t let him speak.  
  
Finally, Tony gives up and lets his father rock him back to sleep, still muttering. “Your mother, so much. I’m going to see her, Tony.”

-

The second visitor he gets that night is stone cold sober. The lights flick on and Obie is there in his doorway.  
  
Obie approaches his bed, sits on the side of it. Tony watches him curiously through lidded eyes, but doesn’t say anything.  
  
Unlike his father, Obie doesn’t get under the sheets with him. An arm wraps around his shoulder and Obie says, “What’re you doing up, buddy?”  
  
Tony doesn’t say that the lights woke him back up. “My daddy came in here a little while ago. He woke me up.”  
  
Obie makes a weird noise. “Really? What did he want?”  
  
“I don’t know. Just to hug me, I guess.” It sounds weird, but it’s the truth. Beyond that, Tony has no clue what his father was doing in his bedroom so late at night.  
  
“That’s funny. Did he tell you anything?”  
  
Tony ponders the question, thinking back. He’d been so sleepy. “He said that Mom loves me a lot, and that he was going to see her.” His face flushes at the swear Obie lets out. “My mommy says you're not supposed to say that word,” he says quietly.  
  
Obie laughs in response, but it sounds forced. “Your daddy, Tony...” Obie starts, and then he falls silent. Tony waits. “Your daddy isn’t well.”  
  
A knot forms in the pit of Tony’s stomach. “What do you mean?”  
  
“He had to go to the hospital for a little while. But we’re going to see him tomorrow, okay?”  
  
“What about my mommy? Can I see her?”  
  
Obie is silent again. Then, “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”  
  
Obie smooths down his hair and it’s comforting. “Is Dad going to be okay?” Tony asks, voice small from worry and sleep. He gets a smile.  
  
Obie’s hand is in his hair, just like his dad’s was, but instead of unsettling, it feels soothing. Like Obie is going to undo the strange worry for his father that Tony hates feeling.  
  
Obie is asking him a question, but he’s already starting to drop under the comforting weight of his hand. He shakes himself awake to listen to the tail end of it.  
  
“...you liked those, right?”  
  
Tony blinks heavily, trying to get the right words out. “Liked what?”  
  
Obie frowns and it wakes Tony up just a little more and makes him sit up just that much straighter. “The videos we watched last week. You liked them, didn’t you?”  
  
Tony’s mouth falls open in a small 'o' of understanding. Those videos. The ones with all the people taking their private parts and rubbing them... everywhere.  
  
The obvious answer is no; he hadn’t liked them at all. They’d made him feel warm and uncomfortable, and the way Obie had been kissing his ear made him scrub that area extra hard in the shower that night. But Tony hates disappointing Obie.  
  
“They were okay,” Tony says, with a lackluster shrug. Obie smiles and Tony relaxes again, until Obie startles him with his next question.  
  
“I was thinking we could play some of those games. Would you like that, Tony?”  
  
Not at all. “I don’t know, Obie,” he starts, but then quickly backs up when he sees in Obie’s face that it’s the wrong answer. “I just don’t think that I’m allowed to play those games.”  
  
The smile on Obie’s face is reassuring as he asks, “Why do you think that?”  
  
“Because everyone in the video was a grown up,” Tony says. He doesn’t really believe that at all, but he hopes it gets Obie off his case about it.  
  
Those videos were... sexual. Tony knows that word because that’s how Obie had described the warm feeling he’d been having in his pants. Sexual has the word ‘sex’ in it, and Tony definitely knows sex is for grown ups. His mommy had specifically told him that.  
  
Tony just wants to go to sleep, so that he can wake up and see his daddy at the hospital. But Obie is just as persistent as he had been that week. When he’d been babysitting while his parents were at something called a ‘yacht party’.  
  
Before Tony can speak again, Obie says, “But you do grown up things all the time.”  
  
Tony blinks, confused. He doesn’t think he does. “I’m eight,” he says matter-of-factly.  
  
“But you build things, don’t you?” Obie says, and the hand in his hair stops feeling soothing. He doesn’t know what Obie is trying to convince him of, but it’s upsetting.  
  
“Yeah, I do.”  
  
“Well, doesn’t your daddy build things?”  
  
So? “I don’t think building things is grown up. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be allowed to do it.”  
  
“Trust me, Tony. What you do is called engineering, and it is definitely for grown ups. I can’t even build things, and I work for the company.”  
  
Tony’s mouth falls open again in surprise. He’d never thought of it like that. But still... He doesn’t want Obie to touch him like that.  
  
“Your hands are so small, Tony.” Obie interrupts his train of thought, still smiling at him.  
  
Tony looks at his hands. They are pretty small next to Obie’s, but he’s still little.  
  
“Can we turn back off the lights, Obie?” he asks, voice small and more scared than he likes. He’s beginning to understand that he can’t reason his way out of this.  
  
Obie gets up and turns off the lights. When he comes back to the bed and grabs hold of his hand, Tony realizes he’s shaking. He tries to still himself.  
  
“Shh,” Obie says, “You know I wouldn’t hurt you, right?”  
  
Tony knows that, but.

Obie has always scared him, just a little. Even when he's being reassuring, there's always the threat that his mood would change. Sometimes he even got violent, knocking things over and stuff like that. But he’s never hurt Tony before.  
  
“Are we going to have sex?” Tony asks, but it’s not really a question. He knows the answer.  
  
Obie laughs and says, “Oh, Tony. Always so smart for your age.”  
  
Well. There’s his answer. Tony wiggles out from under the covers and pulls his hand away. Obie lets him go.  
  
He pulls off his shirt, tossing it over the edge of the bed. He goes to push his pajama pants down, but Obie stops him, saying firmly, “Let me.”  
  
Obie undresses him, and everything after that moves quickly.  
  
After, Tony’s jaw hurts and there’s a bad taste in his mouth. He chews on his already swollen bottom lip as he pulls back on his PJs. He hadn’t gotten the tingly feeling, not even once. Not even when Obie had touched him down there.  
  
His head hurts from where Obie had pulled on his hair and his eyes burn from unshed tears. “Obie,” he calls, throat hoarse.  
  
Obie comes out of the bathroom and glances over at Tony, lying in the middle of the bed, under the covers once more. “What is it?  
  
Tony shirks back at the harshness of his tone. All pretense of comfort is gone. “Nothing,” he says quietly. “Just... can I go sleep in Mommy’s room?”  
  
Obie has a hand on his bedroom doorknob when he looks back and says with a face devoid of any emotion, “Your mother is dead.”  
  
He leaves, and Tony is too shocked even to cry. He doesn’t understand anything that has happened to him in the past few hours, but he can slightly grasp the severity of it.  
  
He feels something. Sad, he thinks. But mostly like nothing is ever going to be the same again.


	2. Of Fathers and Boyfriends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tiberius Stone is three years older than Tony and a freshman. He has dark blond hair that falls into his eyes when he laughs, and for a long time Tony wonders if it’s attraction that he feels toward him.

Tony is twelve when he has sex with Obadiah Stane for the last time.  
  
He doesn’t know why Obie doesn’t approach him again. He’s still a scrawny little shrimp, so it’s not like he’s suddenly not attracted to him. Maybe it’s because Obie knew he would be starting high school soon, and the idea turned him off. Maybe he just started to get too busy with the company.  
  
Whatever the reason, Tony feels no sense of loss. But there’s no relief there either. ‘Nothing’ is probably the best descriptor, if he’s honest. Sex with Obie stopped being a burden a long time ago; he was more than desensitized by the time Obie got bored with him.  
  
Much sooner than Tony expected, Obie is soon replaced as the sexual figurehead in his life, with someone new, and much closer to Tony’s age.  
  
Tiberius Stone is three years older than Tony and a freshman. He has dark blond hair that falls into his eyes when he laughs, and for a long time Tony wonders if it’s attraction that he feels toward him. He thinks he likes girls, but Ty makes him doubt all he thought he knew.  
  
That question is cleared up soon enough. Ty kisses him on his thirteenth birthday and they have sex not long after.  
  
Sex with Ty is remarkably similar to sex with Obie. Ty is (predictably) much smaller than Obie is, but the age difference makes sure that the sex feels sufficiently overbearing and uncomfortable. Tony doesn’t start enjoying sex with Ty until months after they start doing it.  
  
Life is routine for a long time. He attends boarding school during the school year, like he has since he was little. He shares a room with Ty and gets fucked on the regular. He goes to classes in the day and parties by night. He and Ty do the break up, get drunk and have sex with other people, make up routine regularly.  
  
Life is perfectly normal. Until it isn’t.  
  
His dad slams down an envelope in front of him. Tony knows exactly what’s inside and he’s not nearly drunk enough for this conversation.  
  
“Do you know what this is?” his dad asks. Tony downs the last of his scotch. Of course he knows what it is. He’s only spent the entire summer hiding it from his father. He should have burned the damn thing, or sent it into orbit, or something. He doesn’t even know how his father found it. It was probably lying around on the floor in his room, along with everything else he hasn’t packed yet.  
  
“You know I fucking know,” he says sullenly, his words slurring only slightly. He glares down at the envelope on the table, making damn sure not to meet his father’s eye.  
  
Without warning, his dad backhands him across the face. Startled, but not surprised, Tony cups his jaw. It’s not the first time, but there’s usually more build up before Howard cuts to the ‘I’m your father and you will respect me’ part of their little talks. But alcohol has always been an accelerant to his father’s mechanics, and Tony can smell a lot of it as he reels from the slap.  
  
“You’ll watch your fucking mouth when you’re speaking to me,” his dad says, practically spitting in rage now. Tony guesses that he has about thirty seconds to meet his father’s eye before he’s hit again.  
  
So, of course, he doesn’t, and he gets exactly what he’s expecting. Tony pushes his chair back from the table, reeling from the second hit, knocking over his glass. It shatters on the ground, but neither of them pay any attention to it.  
  
He’s obviously going to have to suck it up if he wants this conversation to be over with anytime this century.  
  
“‘Dear Mr. Stark’,” Tony starts, trying to keep the shakiness out of his voice; he's still pretty drunk. He has the letter memorized by heart. “‘We were pleased to note that you received our acceptance letter. However, we were greatly disappointed to hear of your declining attendance at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the future, we hope to hear you have had a change of heart. Please contact us at any time if you ever choose to accept admission into any of our programs, undergraduate or otherwise. Signed, MIT Admissions Office.'”  
  
“Do you know how many of these they send out per year?” It’s not a question, so much as an accusation. Tony throws his hands up in lieu of responding. Fuck if he knows.  
  
“None. It's unheard of, Tony.”  
  
"Obviously not that unheard of," Tony says. He turns to stalk off, not at all in the mood for the direction this conversation is headed in. But his father grabs his wrist before he can get anywhere. His grip is far too tight and Tony knows he’s going to have some bruises there tomorrow.  
  
Tony tries to shake him off roughly, but his father, like every other fucking person in authority in his life, if far stronger than him. “Get off me,” he hisses roughly, trying to pull away.  
  
His father lets go, but he follows the release up with an aggressive demand. “As soon as I’m finished with this sentence, you are going to explain to me why you told one of the most prestigious schools in this country to fuck off.”  
  
Tony flushes, but doesn’t back down. “Because they didn’t get the point the first fifty times I told them no.” He’s being deliberately obtuse and he knows it.  
  
His father says through gritted teeth, “That is not the point I’m trying to make. Answer the question.”  
  
Frustration has built up inside Tony until he can’t handle it anymore. He releases by pushing a nearby vase off of a side table. It falls to the floor with a satisfyingly dramatic crash. “I fucking told you. I am _going_ to Brown with Ty.”  
  
His dad is not nearly as prone to dramatics as he is. He eyes the smashed vase with no small amount of derision, but his eyes lose none of the obvious rage. “A school for idiots and underachievers. You’re going to follow that boy there, and for what? Sex?”  
  
Tony’s eyes narrow. He’s not going to get trapped into this conversation again. “I hope Viastone takes over your damn company and you go bankrupt.”  
  
Howard looks like he wants to hit him again. Tony saves him the trouble by leaving the dining room. Nothing he says is going to change Howard’s mind about Ty. He’s already tried to separate them in the past. Tony has no doubt he’s going to try again.  
  
But it could be worse, Tony thinks. As insufferable as he is, Howard could be much worse. He could be Ty’s dad.  
  
Tony rubs the finger shaped bruises on his wrist and contemplates that. He wonders what Ty is doing now. Probably sleeping.  
  
No rest for the wicked, Tony thinks with a sigh. He hasn’t even started packing and his flight is in a few hours.  
  
This year is going to suck.

- 

Tony can hear his new roommate getting ready for bed in the bathroom. The unfamiliarity of the noises makes him take out a cigarette and light it.  
  
His roommate, a new boy here on scholarship, comes out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel. He’s shirtless, and Tony drags his eyes away before he’s caught appreciating the view.  
  
“Bathroom’s free,” the boy says unnecessarily. Tony resists the urge to roll his eyes. He doesn’t even remember this guy’s name. So he asks.  
  
The boy seems surprised that Tony is bothering to ask. He says with obvious trepidation, “Avery.”  
  
Tony is painfully aware of the thick southern accent Avery clearly doesn’t realize he should be hiding yet. “What are you doing all the way up here in New England, Avery?” he asks, as if he cares.  
  
Avery shrugs. “To get a good education.”  
  
Tony smirks. “A _very_ good education, would you say?” He takes a drag from his cigarette and grins toothily up at Avery.  
  
Avery gives a cursory laugh as if he’d never heard that joke before, and says, “If we’re asking questions, aren’t you kinda young to be a junior?”  
  
It’s Tony’s turn to shrug, blowing smoke rings up at the ceiling. “Boy genius,” he says simply. It’s apt an explanation as anything.  
  
Before Tony can continue the thread of conversation, or take a shower, or do anything, the door to their room bursts open.  
  
Avery, as if on reflex, puts himself between Tony and the door. Tony wonders what’s happened to him to make him think that was necessary.  
  
It’s just Ty, though. “Hey, man, you heard of knocking?” Avery says, but he sits down on his bed, apparently satisfied there is no threat.  
  
Ty glances at Avery, taking in his blond hair and shirtless state, and Tony thinks he can hear him putting pieces of an imaginary puzzle together in his brain. He swallows, nervous, but Ty looks back at him and smiles.  
  
“That stuff is going to rot your beautiful teeth, Mark Antony,” Ty says, not sparing Avery a second glance.  
  
Tony puts out the cigarette hurriedly in the ashtray next to his bed and smiles tiredly. “What do you need, Caesar?  
  
Ty looks sidelong at Avery again, and then takes Tony by the hand, and pulls him out the door and into the common room. Everybody is either asleep or getting ready for bed, so it’s empty and the lights are off.  
  
Before Tony can ask what this is about, Ty pulls him in close and kisses him as if they haven’t seen each other in years, rather than saying goodnight a few hours ago.  
  
“We can’t, Ty,” Tony says automatically when they part, already knowing what this is about, and Ty’s face crumples. Tony already feels guilty, but he can’t budge on this one. “I got into a huge fight with my dad before I left. He wants - "  
  
“You to go to MIT,” Ty finishes for him, annoyance plain in his voice. “You told me. But my dad spoke to the housing department.”  
  
Tony pulls out of his embrace, annoyed. He doesn’t want to tell Ty that Howard despises him, but Ty always seems to deliberately miss the point, or just ignore Tony’s feelings in general. “It's not that. My dad? Not so keen on the idea of us living together,” Tony says. To put it lightly.  
  
“Tony,” Ty says, obviously losing his patience, “I’m not asking you. Bring over your damn things.”  
  
Tony flinches back reflexively from Ty’s raised voice. “Yeah, that’s not happening, Ty. Did you even tell Kwon you’re kicking him out on his ass?”  
  
Ty scowls. “Don’t change the subject.”  
  
Frustrated, Tony pulls out another cigarette. “I have to change the damn subject because you can’t take no for an answer.” Ty grabs the cigarette out of his hand and throws it across the room.  
  
“Stop it with the fucking death sticks, Tony.”  
  
“Fuck you,” Tony snarls, trying to push past Ty to get back into his room.  
  
“Tony, listen to me,” Ty tries, but Tony interrupts him.  
  
“No, fuck you, Ty," Tony says emphatically, "I hate when you get like this. You're acting like your father.” Tony gets his door open, but Ty is stronger than him. He grabs the knob around Tony’s hand and slams it closed. The noise echoes loudly in the room, but one of the perks of not being a freshman is the serious lack of supervision. No one is going to come check out the noise.  
  
“You don’t fucking talk to me like that,” Ty snarls, normally warm brown eyes cold and angry, and Tony knows he took it too far.  
  
Subdued, Tony says quietly, “I’m sorry. But, we can’t room this semester.”  
  
Ty is silent for so long that Tony jumps when he moves past him quickly. He opens Tony’s bedroom door and grabs Tony’s arm, pulling him strongly behind him.  
  
Tony doesn’t try to get away, until he’s pulled past the threshold and sees Avery staring at them over his laptop. Fuck if he’s going to look like a bitch who can’t defend himself. He wiggles in Ty’s grasp and manages to get away, not that that stops him. He goes straight for Tony’s bags next to his bed.  
  
All Tony can do is try to put himself between Ty and his bags, cursing his habit of never unpacking on the first day back. But Ty is bigger, older, and stronger than him. He pushes past Tony easily and grabs up two of his bags.  
  
“Stop it, Ty!” Tony shouts uselessly, but Ty ignores him. Tony follows him and tries to take his bags away; there's a brief struggle, but Ty overpowers him easily. Tony watches helplessly as Ty makes for the door with his stuff.  
  
Tony allows himself the brief fantasy of Avery getting up and defending him. He would stand between Ty and the door, like he had earlier, maybe grab Tony’s bags out of Ty’s hands and shove him over. He’d say some memorable one liner and Ty would scowl, but storm out, defeated.  
  
In reality, Avery sits on his bed and watches wide-eyed as Tony quietly pleads with Ty to stop making a scene.  
  
In reality, Tony follows Ty out of the room quietly, scene made and over with.  
  
In reality, Tony looks like a defenseless little bitch while Ty takes control of him again.  
  
Tony moves into Ty’s room that night.

  
When Tony sees Avery in class the next day, he looks away. If Avery notices his black eye, he doesn’t comment.


	3. In Tiberius We Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are perfect. Then, they're not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the (ridiculously) long wait. I went fandom hopping and lost inspiration. Hope this makes up for it. <3 I'm going to work on replying to all the lovely comments I've gotten.

Before this very moment, Ty has never shown any sign that he knew what an afterglow was. But weed always did make him cuddly. Not that Tony minds, it’s a welcome change from the usual. Coke always has Ty on edge, doing shit like trying to plan a picnic at four in the morning, or trying to make Tony go down on him in some unwelcomely public place.

Ty’s arm is tight around his waist, and he’s mumbling into Tony’s neck. Terms of endearment that aren’t going to mean shit in about an hour, when Ty’s skin starts to itch from the inside, and he gets up to get a fix and get angry about something pointless.

“You love me?” Ty mumbles, nuzzling Tony’s neck. It’s adorable and romantic and Tony wants to milk it for every second it lasts. Not that he’d ever admit that, but no one’s asking.

“What do you think?” Tony whispers back to him, rolling over in his arms. “'Course I love you.”

It’s moments like these that make Tony remember why he loves Ty. Moments when it’s just the two of them, and Ty lets his guard down. The red is poking out from under Ty’s expensive hair dye, but holed up here Ty doesn’t bother with it. Which Tony likes to think means something special, seeing as Ty is the vainest person he has ever met in his life.

It makes Tony rethink why he’d resisted coming out to California all these years. His reason has always been that having Obie in the same state as him skeeves him out. It doesn’t bother him, usually, in New York, but something about being on Obie’s home turf always turns Tony’s stomach in ways he prefers to ignore.

Then Ty had begged him for the third summer in a row to come out to his father’s Malibu beach house with him, and he’d finally said yes. Considering what had happened last summer, Tony didn’t dare resist this time. If Tony had said no again, Ty would have gone to stay with his dad in his Beverly Hills mansion, and Tony has absolutely no desire to deal with the fallout of that in September.

“Do you think it’s going to get too cold to sleep out here?” Ty asks, completely breaking the mood. Tony snorts, because how should he know?

“I think if I lay out here any longer, I’ll get crabs,” Tony says, grinning as he presses his forehead to Ty’s. It’s too dark to see if Ty rolls his eyes or not, but Tony’s pretty sure he does.

“No crabs in this bed, I’m pretty sure. Unless there’s something you want to tell me.” 

Tony’s heart flutters, because the joke is approaching dangerous territory, but it’s clear from the way that Ty is smiling against his chin that he’s joking. He laughs obediently, properly dismissive.

They lie in silence for a while, listening to the waves wash roughly on the sand. It makes Tony feel vaguely sea sick, but he knows Ty thinks it’s soothing.

Ty is the first to break the silence. “You believe in hell, Tony?” he asks softly.

Tony turns to look at him, guard up without warning. “I don’t know,” he says, hesitatingly. Short, unclear, and unlikely to be misconstrued in any way that would piss Ty off.

“I do, sometimes,” Ty says, running his knuckles over the soft hairs at the base of Tony’s neck. It soothes Tony, a bit, that Ty doesn’t realize he’s doing it. But he seems distant, suddenly.

“I think about who gets in, mostly.”

“I mean, it’s hell, Ty. People are probably down there scalping tickets up to heaven,” Tony jokes, trying to get the mood back to where it was earlier. Philosophical isn’t a word he associates with Ty; the unpredictableness of the topic of conversation has him on edge.

Ty ignores him, looking vaguely annoyed that Tony interrupted his train of thought. Tony decides just to let him talk.

“My mother is in hell,” Ty says matter of factly, fingers still running lightly on Tony’s neck.

Immediately, Tony softens. “Shit, Ty,” he says, grabbing Ty’s hand and tangling their fingers together. “Your mom’s not in hell.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s something in the bible about fucking every single one of your husband’s business partners.”

“If being kind of a slut gets you a free pass to hell, I think both of us’ll see her down there,” Tony says, and Ty laughs weakly. “Besides, I met her. She seemed sweet.”

“She gave me valium so I would fall asleep until I was ten.”

If they’re talking sins here, Tony’s not sure how to feel about Ty dancing around the most obvious one. He still deciding between relief and pity, when Ty says, “Besides, there’s gotta be something in that book about offing yourself in front of your kid.”

No clue what to say to that, Tony is silent.

“It’s not just the evil fuckers like Ted Bundy, or who the fuck ever, that end up down there," Ty goes on. "All the generally rotten people are going. People like my father. He never killed anyone, but I don’t think there’s room in heaven for pricks that like to hit kids.”

Shit, shit. This conversation is going southward fast. Tony grasps desperately for something to say to derail it. He needs a fucking cigarette.

Tony's nodding in agreement when Ty says suddenly, “Or pricks that fuck kids. I’m pretty sure that your Obie will see my parents down there when the time comes.” Ugh. He did not need Obie infiltrating his time alone with Ty. Shivers dance up and down his spine.

“ _My_ Obie?” is the first thing that comes to Tony’s mind to say. Getting a word in makes Tony’s jumbled thoughts come together long enough to say, “Look, Ty, if hell exists, I’m pretty sure there’s not enough room down there for every person who has ever had questionable sex, or all the rich society moms who tell their kid’s nannies to shut them up with meds. I don’t believe in that shit, but if I did, I think that if you’re a decent enough person, you won’t end up there.”

After a long pause, Tony adds, “If it exists.”

Tony feels Ty nod against him. “Yeah,” he hears him agree quietly. “If it exists.”

 

Memories always make things seem brighter, more colourful. A shitty day can become a fond memory if you work your brain at it hard enough.

That's what Tony tells himself, shivering alone on Ty’s porch. When he looks back on this summer, he'll just remember how fun and romantic it was. How much sex they had, the food they ate, what they talked about. This one fight isn't even going to be a blip on the radar.

But it’s pretty hard to convince himself of this as of right now. For one, Ty isn’t even here. He’d fucked off somewhere after getting high enough to apparently forget that Tony is a human and yes, he bruises and bleeds like the rest of them.

Tony could get up and get a blanket, but it hurts far too much much to move. Also, it feels almost like a punishment, sitting here, miserable. He'd goaded Ty on purpose, couldn't help himself. He knew Ty had had a difficult phone call, but he'd nagged him about the coke anyway. So he sits, freezing his ass off, trying to ignore the fact that his arm is probably broken, or at least sprained.

He remembers a time when being with Ty was the most amazing thing in the world. He used to love being in love.

Because loving Ty, and being loved back was something he’d never had before. Staying up late talking, holding hands, ditching class to have sex. But it was more than sex. Ty was his first real friend. His only real friend, ever.

Tony can pinpoint exactly when it changed.

Summer, when Ty flew over to New York for his mother’s funeral. That night, he’d held Tony in his arms while he’d cried like a baby. The next morning it was as if Ty had been replaced with someone else.

At the ripe old age of fifteen, Tony wasn’t sure what do with this new, irritable Ty. He spent the following school year in a perpetual state of anxiety, watching Ty to make sure he didn’t self destruct. He let Ty take out his grief on him, helped him self medicate, gave him space to fuck other people when commitment became too much for him.

A year later, he still does those things, but the difference is that now, he’s very much aware of how fucked up it is. How he can laugh with Ty, go down on him, then in the same hour beg Ty not to fuck his face up because they have school pictures the next day.

Now, being with Ty is a little less than the most amazing thing in the world. It’s more like walking nervously around a time bomb that smiles and flicks shaggy hair out of its eyes, one that tells Tony that he loves him more than anything, while threatening to destruct at any moment.

But Tony’s more than used to this kind of thing. Walking on eggshells around Obie had trained him well for dealing with Ty. Honestly, Tony counts himself as lucky for getting some experience dealing with people like that. Because if Tony didn’t have the experience he does, Ty probably would have broken up with him a long time ago.

Whatever faults Ty has, it’s not like Tony can just stop loving him. That’s just not what people who love each other _do_. Not that Tony has a ton of experience with that, but he’s pretty positive.

So Tony will sit here shivering in the cold California night air and wait for Ty to get back. It’s the least he can do.

Later, long after Tony goes to bed, Ty slips in smelling like booze.

“Tony,” Ty whispers, prodding Tony in the side until he turns over. Tony blinks up at him and smiles, relieved. He knew Ty would come back, obviously. It’s his house. It was obvious.

“Let me guess,” Tony says, voice scratchy from sleep, “you’re sorry and you’re making me pancakes in the morning?”

Tony can’t see Ty’s face in the dark, but it’s obvious from his voice that he’s smiling. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

“None of that gluten-free shit, either.”

Ty pulls him close and nuzzles his neck. “I love you so much. You forgive me?”

Of course, Tony does.

 

It all happens so quickly after that. There’s not much out of the ordinary about the fight, but it escalates in a way it hasn't before.

Ty makes him the disgusting gluten free pancakes he pretends to find delicious and they eat them side by side in bed. It’s romantic and amazing, until it’s not.

There was no point, Tony realizes, in getting his arm looked at and bandaged. Ty rips the cast off and twists his arm painfully behind his back. They’re fighting, Tony thinks, about what Ty got up to last night. His brain is screaming too loudly at him to get the fuck out of there for him to focus on whatever the argument has dissolved into.

Ty shoves him up against the kitchen counter, hard, and Tony sees dark spots behind his eyes. He hopes he’ll pass out from the pain soon, because Ty doesn’t seem to be letting up.

This whole thing would be easier, Tony thinks, if it was physically possible for him to stop _running his damn mouth_. “You know,” he hears himself say through teeth gritted with pain, “I’m going to build a bot one day that will tell me when you’re about to go off.”

That gets him turned around roughly, and backhanded across the face. But he’s apparently not done yet. “Because I sure as _fuck_ can’t predict it,” he spits out, hoping that’s not a fucking tooth he feels rattling around in his mouth and wishing he would just fucking _black out_ already because in his less than lucid state he’s wondering if they’ll have to amputate his arm. 

Maybe both his arms, then his legs, and his whole body. Anything to get this pain to stop before he loses his mind.

“My stash, Tony,” Ty says sharply, bring their bodies close together and shaking him hard. “What the fuck did you do with it?”

Tony somehow still has it in him to laugh bitterly. Because the irony is that Tony is always dumping that shit in the trash, or flushing it down the toilet, and of all the times Ty chooses to confront him about it, it’s when he hasn't touched it.

“Remember last night, when you beat the shit out of me then fucked off somewhere? You spent all night doing lines after your dad called. Then you left and took it with you.”

“Bullshit,” Ty growls, shaking him again. 

“It’s the fucking truth.”

“ _Bullshit_!” Ty yells, his fist connecting neatly with Tony’s jaw, jarring his head sharply to the left, before kneeing him in the stomach. Tony’d have fallen flat on his face, doubled over in pain, if Ty didn't have such a death grip on his shoulder.

Suddenly, Ty lets him go and Tony miraculously doesn't scream as he lands on his arm. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

Tony’s heart sinks like a stone into the bottom of his stomach. Automatically, he rises to his feet, holding his arm limp against his chest. 

“Ty,” he says softly, limping as close as he dares. His vocal chords are sore from yelling. “Ty, it’s Malibu. There’s a rehab on every block. You can find a dealer anywhere.”

Ty is pretty far beyond reasoning, though. Tony probably should have guessed that. He leans down close so that Tony can see how angry his eyes are. He's fucked.

“You have two choices, Tony. You can give me what I know you took," Ty pauses, as if Tony's going to produce it from behind his back right now, "or you can get the fuck out.”

Ty leaves after giving him that ultimatum, slamming the heavy wooden front door behind him. Once Tony hears the car screech out of the driveway, he calls Obie.

What else can he do, really? Ty didn’t let him bring any of his own money, so he has no credit card, and he took the car.

“Obie?” he says, quietly because it hurts to speak.

 _"Tony, now is not a good time,"_ Obie says. Tony can hear people in the background. He’s in a meeting. But he has to ask.

“I need you to come get me,” he says, trying his best not to sound like he needs help, which is pointless, he knows.

_"In Malibu, Tony? That’s a three hour drive."_

“Send a car, then. Please,” he says, putting as much emphasis on the please as he can. 

The voices in the background disappear as Obie obviously leaves the room. _"What’s going on?"_ he asks, and if Tony didn’t know better, he’d mistake the annoyance in Obie's tone for genuine concern.

“It’s nothing huge, I’m just kind of bleeding out on the kitchen floor, so, you know. Take your time.”

 _"Bleeding out? Jesus, Tony, what the hell happened?"_ Obie says urgently.

“Fuck off with all the questions, Obie, just come pick me up.”

_"God, Tony. I’ll send a car."_

“And Obie?

_"What?"_

“Please, just. Don’t call my dad.”

 

He’d made Obie promise, double promise, triple promise, pinky swear, cross his heart and hope to die that he wouldn’t tell his dad about this, under the condition that Tony let Obie take him to a hospital in San Diego.

Tony is just about to call the nurse for another blanket when his father decides now is the time for a dramatic entrance.

True to expectation, Howard comes in, slamming the door to Tony’s room behind him, which is just so Howard. It’s a hospital and he still wants to have the most attention out of anyone in the building. He approaches Tony’s hospital bed (which is apparently mandatory, even for the suites), his shoes clicking loudly on the tiles.

He’s wearing a rumpled business suit and a grim expression. Immediately, that sets off warning bells. Howard is never anything less than put together at any given (sober) moment. Tony doesn't catch the scent of alcohol off him, not even when he's right next to the bed.

“I was going to say I didn’t know my pain was so pleasing to you, but honestly this is not the reaction I expected,” Tony says, pushing the food around on the tray in his lap.

Tony knows his father well enough to be dreading whatever comes next. Undoubtedly, his father would freak out and lecture him long and hard, before going on at length about his punishment. And he'll manage to do all that without saying many words at all, because that's how he is.

Tony was right to be on edge. Nothing could have prepared him for what Howard says next.

"Public school."

Tony reels back as if his father had just spit at him, rather than speak two words that, when together, have absolutely nothing to do with him.

"Augustus Stone has never been a reasonable person. Or a particularly prudent father." The idea of Howard Stark criticizing anyone's parenting skills is so absurd that even if Tony wasn't so damn confused, he'd probably be too stunned to laugh. Howard has never displayed a single sign of knowing any qualities that a father should have, much less fucking prudence.

"He and his brother made it perfectly clear to me that they have no intention whatsoever of speaking to that spoiled child. They made certain I understood that Tiberius would request to be sent wherever I put you, and it wasn't enough of a concern to bother with the _hassle_ of refusing him."

Tony is not sure what's happening, but whatever it is, it's sending him into the early stages of a panic attack. The stitches under his eye pull painfully as his breaths starts to escape him too fast for his head to keep up.

His father eyes him disdainfully, eyes sharp and unfeeling. He continues, "I threatened to press charges and they laughed in my face, all three of them. They apparently don't put much stock in a Stark man's ability to fight back. I wonder where they got that from."

The insult wraps itself around his heart and tugs sharply. It would hurt less if it wasn't the absolute truth.

Howard sits at the side of Tony's bed and squints at the bruises and cuts on his face, his swollen eye, assessing. He gives the same look to Tony's arms and neck, then a hand reaches out to tug at the neckline of his hospital gown. Tony can't even flinch.

His father's gaze doesn't falter at the sight of his chest. The only new mark there is the bruise Ty had given him when he'd shoved him against the counter, yesterday. If his father is surprised at all the other fading cuts and bruises there, he doesn't show it.

"No, I have absolutely no idea where they could have gotten that impression," his father says coldly, letting his hand drop.

Tony makes himself, _forces_ himself to breathe properly. He has to find out what his father is telling him.

"What exactly are you saying?" Tony asks as evenly as he can, breath hitching only a little.

"Don't play stupid, Tony," Howard snaps. 

Tony isn't playing stupid. The pieces won't fit together in his head. He's high on painkillers, his body answers every move his muscles make with a sharp, dull ache, and his brain is screaming at him to _get away, find Ty, Ty will protect him_.

He doesn't have the words to articulate that to Howard right now. He echoes haltingly, "Public school."

"I spoke to Obadiah..."

Obie. Obie had promised.

"We both came to the decision that this is the best option."

Public school. Obie had promised.

"I know you think you have Obadiah wrapped around your little finger, Tony, but you'll do good to remember that he works for _me_. Whatever he promised you, it's my final decision."

"He promised. Public school," Tony mouths, sound not coming out anymore. Had he really been saying it out loud this whole time?

Suddenly, it clicks into place. Ty's dad, bastard as he is, would never send his son to public school. The idea was as ridiculous as the idea of him going to public school had been, up until this moment. 

Tony understands. Then, he’s _frantic_.

“Fuck, Howard, Dad, no. You can’t send me to public school, I have to be there for him, you don’t understand,” Tony babbles, looking at his dad, seeing straight through him. All he can see is images of Ty, alone on the anniversary of his mother’s death. Ty, alone, dealing with it all by himself. Tony wouldn't be there, he could seriously hurt himself, he could...

Fuck.

His father looks at him incredulously, and before Tony can start up again, he says, “You have to be there for him? Anthony, look what he did to you.”

“But I’m fine now, see?” Tony says desperately, holding up his bandaged arm. “All patched up, right as rain. Just let me go back to Malibu, please. Ty and I will work it out.”

Howard shakes his head. “It’s an embarrassment, Tony. An embarrassment to me, an embarrassment to our business. You think all our competitors don’t know about my son fucking Viastone’s heir? You think they won’t all see what kind of backbone this company has if this gets out?”

Just like that, Tony is _livid_. He has never been angrier in his entire life. 

“You’re a fucking idiot,” he hisses sharply at his father, who looks properly taken aback. “You’re an idiot for thinking he won’t follow me. There won’t be a place on earth, not one single place you think you can hide me, that he won’t come get me.”

Tony’s father just looks at him. Watching. Contemplating.

“He loves me,” Tony finishes firmly, eyeing his father for a reaction.

“Well,” Howard says, standing, pulling on his coat. “We’ll see about that.”

The door closes gently behind him, this time.

Tony is alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Steve!


End file.
